E-Commerce Firms’ Geographic Scope: Roles of Intangible Resources and Country-Specific Moderators

Abstract

In an increasingly digitalized economy, e-commerce firms are known to internationalize with a greater scope than offline firms. However, it is important to analyze how their geographic scope depends on intangible resources acquired over time and whether their exploitation is affected by country-specific boundaries. The authors propose a theory-based framework to analyze the relationship between e-commerce firms’ intangible resources and geographic scope. Importantly, they apply multilevel modeling with cross-level interactions to provide insights into the role of country-specific moderators, i.e., rule of law, degree of country development, and logistics performance. The authors use data on 263 leading e-commerce firms in Europe and 2,632 market entries over 24 years. The results show that some e-commerce firms have a wider geographic scope than others due to specific intangible resources. However, these relationships change depending on the moderators, which explain country-specific variances differently. The findings have direct implications for managers interested in understanding how resources affect online geographic scope.